Buried Alive: The Secret WWII Bunker Hidden Inside Gibraltar’s Rock

in 1997 a group of cavers part of the gibraltar caving group were high up within the myriad of tunnels that honeycomb through the rock the giant limestone promotory that forms the centre of the british overseas colony of gibraltar they had probably been through this particular tunnel numerous times before located near an artillery fortification called lord 80's battery this time however they noticed something peculiar a draft was coming from one of the tunnel walls deep inside the rock as they were finding a draft emanating from behind a corrugated iron wall was certainly strange it had to be coming from somewhere upon investigation the group of cavers peeled back the old metal sheeting to find a brick wall and behind that a rotted wooden door frame leading down a dark hitherto unknown tunnel with the kind of confidence only a caver could possess the group entered into the darkness of this strange and eerie tunnel and became the first people in over half a century to see what was inside their torches bounced off a huge whitewashed room on the ground appeared to be some form of strange cork flooring as well as some scattered items and the rusted remains of radio equipment pushing further inside a set of steps led up to another level it was here where the team found the source of the drafts that led them here in the first place as well as the real reason for this strange hidden chamber's existence perfectly disguised viewing slits that looked out and over the straits of gibraltar and down into the mediterranean sea the group could scarcely believe what they had found for years rumors had abounded of an ultra-secret stay-behind cave that had been secretly built during world war ii should the rock have fallen the rumors went men would have been locked up in these caves perhaps indefinitely to secretly observe and report movements back to the british the rumors it seems had been true but what is the real story and function behind this incredible stay behind cave who designed it who manned it and are there more secrets hidden in the rock waiting to be found by the end of 1940 a little over a year since the second world war had officially begun the allied nations were in a perilous position against the seemingly unstoppable onslaught of axis forces across europe after occupying poland in 1939 germany had simultaneously invaded norway and occupied denmark in early 1940 before sweeping down through belgium and the netherlands circumventing french defenses along the manchester line or simply breaking through them entirely eventually the british expeditionary force was pushed back and finally forced to evacuate at dunkirk losing thousands of men and essential equipment to the approaching germans only days after the evacuation italy's fascist leader benito mussolini announced an alliance with hitler declaring war on britain and france which was now fighting a brave doomed defense of the homeland before their eventual capitulation in june of 1940. with france and their major european allies defeated occupied or on the retreat the united kingdom was left in an isolated position at the end of their first full year of conflict however britain's most powerful asset was still the royal navy and her control of the sea and it now became more crucial than ever to retain control of the major sea routes that would allow access to britain's empire and overseas allies for now vital manpower and supplies one of the most key points of the control of the atlantic in the mediterranean lay at the rock of gibraltar one of britain's most famous overseas territories and one with the potential to control virtually all naval traffic into and out of the mediterranean sea and into the atlantic ocean gibraltar had acted as a bastion of british control over the area for over 200 years guarding the narrow gap between africa and the iberian peninsula and also acting as a heavily fortified safe harbor for ships and supplies the most distinctive aspect of the small peninsula is the distinctive rock of gibraltar the huge mass of early jurassic dolomite and limestone that rises to a sharply ridged crest with peaks over 400 meters high gibralta had been laid siege to many times before most famously from 1779 to 1783 by the spanish who unsuccessfully attempted to bombard and storm the great rock for over three years both the fortifications of gibraltar and the british humanity proved too resilient however and over the decades further defenses walls and artillery batteries were added as well as a multitude of tunnels and shelters burrowed deep into the rock to provide shelter to the defenders both the british and the germans were keenly aware that gibraltar together with the british island base of malta and the port city of alexandria linked great britain with its empire and gibraltar more than others was a key element in the control of the mediterranean during the fall of france heinz guderian had even urged hitler to postpone the armistice with france so that he could rush through spain with two panzer divisions to take gibralta and invade french north africa in a bid to more effectively cut off britain's eastern empire now with the italian navy to contend with the british feared that the germans may still strike a deal with spain's leader franco or simply invade spain in a bid to capture gibraltar at any moment they were right in their fears formal plans for an invasion of the rock had begun to take place during mid-1940 under the code name operation felix which would be an air-supported ground assault involving at least two infantry regiments three engineer battalions and a dozen artillery regiments while franco was clearly no friend of the british or their claim to gibraltar spain had only just emerged from a devastating civil war and relied heavily on british and u.s imports hitler's attempts to draw franco and spain into the conflict had failed and with it their planned assault on gibraltar however while operation felix stalled british analysis and intelligence still sensed the danger of potential invasion at any time and so began a massive campaign to increase the defensive capabilities of gibraltar layers of tank traps minefields barbed wire and gun emplacements were built up along the british and spanish border and all non-essential civilians were evacuated and space made for a huge increase in the defense of garrison perhaps the most intensive defensive measurements would be the massive improvement and extension of the existing networks of tunnels that ran through the rock some of which dated back to the 18th century from late 1940 various excavation and construction companies of the royal engineers began the arduous process of mining out thousands of tons of rock making way for a veritable underground city that spanned over 30 miles of tunnel systems providing safe bomb-proof accommodation for a gaddison of 16 000 men and enough food to last 16 months these tunnels contained everything from telephone exchanges generating stations a water distillation plant nicknamed glen rocky a hospital frozen food stores a bakery ammunition magazines and even a vast underground reme shed where damaged vehicles and equipment could be repaired many chambers were constructed for the placement of nissan huts in mind which were built complete with frosted glass windows to help inhabitants feel more comfortable under the ground as well as to protect against drops of water and cold drafts of wind at its peak in average almost 50 000 tons of stone were being excavated from the rock per company per month with much of the excess stone being used to expand the raf basin runway near the spanish border in the midst of this massive defensive buildup however an ultra-secret plan was also being developed should the worst happen and gibraltar fall to the axis forces in the disastrous event that the british did indeed lose gibralta it would be essential that observations of shipping and military movements along the straits and around gibraltar itself could be observed and relayed back to the allies therefore it was proposed that a well-disguised observation post be set up with vantage points to view movements at sea and in the harbour this operation codenamed tracer was of such absolute secrecy that planning took place outside the walls of the government headquarters in whitehall where spies could be listening or information could be leaked instead planning took place at 36 carson street the home of rear admiral john henry godfrey who was at that point director of naval intelligence and an overall charge of the operation it was also here where ian fleming the writer who had later gone to create the james bond character in spy series worked as the personal assistant to godfrey and it is suspected that the bond character of m was based on john henry godfrey himself the final plan for tracer would involve an incredibly well-hidden observation pose buried deep and high in the gibraltar rock the post would be provisioned for six men who had volunteered for the covert operation two doctors three signalmen and an executive officer the observation post itself would have two vantage points one looking due east over the mediterranean and the other looking over the straits of gibraltar and into the harbour itself the site chosen was high on the rock under a gun battery known as lord 80s battery built originally in the late 1800s tunneling was already taking place in this area which would mask the work of creating any secret chambers from spies or enemy observers who were taking notes of areas and where stone and debris were being removed as the work of tunnelling continued all over gibraltar the secret chambers of the tracer cave began to take place branching off an existing tunnel under aries battery a rough section of tunnel hewn from the rock snaked towards a single door which led to another door and what looked to be the beginnings of a well-built stone wall entering this door led to the chamber where the men would live the single room was 45 foot long and 16 foot wide the walls stood eight foot high all plastered and painted in a clean bright white to help give a less claustrophobic feeling to the space as the men would be relying on fat burning lamps for light which would give away no identifiable smell the white walls throughout the poster also help reflect any of the dim light sources in the room the flooring used in this main space of the room consisted of cork tiling of two types square tiles which were laid eight deep from the wall and all the way around the room and others laid in a herringbone style to cover the remaining central area of the floor it's believed that this floor covering would have provided both noise and thermal insulation within the space it was here in this small space that the six men would sleep cook eat and clean along with beds and other furniture the space would have been filled to the brim with food and provisions required for the men to survive for up to a year located against one wall was perhaps the most important provision a ten thousand gallon breathe weight fresh water tank which was fed from an outside source this was connected to a tap that drained into a small wash pit embedded on the floor at about 3 feet square and 30 feet deep could be used for water collection or cleaning aside from the entrance doorway the only other door was at the far end of the room and opened into a stairway leading to the crucial observation viewports that looked out on either side of the rock immediately out of this doorway and flanking the staircase were two rooms of similar size and shape one of which contained the toilets and the other the all-important radio room that would have been used for reporting any observations as the whole plan depended on the communication system much thought was given to the operation of the radio installation and the design of the system fell to colonel gambier patty an mi6 radio expert because the cave would have limited or no access to any outside power sources the radio systems would have to be designed to run from a series of batteries in a top secret document later retrieved from the national archives a summary of the communication equipment was described three small 12 volt 120 amp hour batteries were recommended together with one bicycle propelled and one hand propelled generator no results could be guaranteed without the use of an outside aerial a rod aerial 18 foot long could be thrust out through the aperture when required the frequency to be used would be about 12 mega cycles by day and 12 mega cycles by night broadcasting observations would only happen at select times and an 18 feet long aerial was to be pushed out of an opening in the rock when required this obviously posed a huge risk should the apparatus be spotted and so great care would have to be taken when such broadcasts took place continuing up the stairs was a landing that branched off to the two observation posts the first of which looked east and down into the mediterranean the opening to the east observation post was chest high with a covering of foliage and camouflage and large enough that one could crawl out and onto a ledge with an unobstructed view miles down the mediterranean and even looking north towards the airport and aircraft that could be taking off or landing this is also where the conduit was located in which the broadcast ideal could be discreetly deployed climbing one level further took you to perhaps the most important area of the entire bunker the observation post that looked west towards the straits of gibraltar and down into the harbour itself the passageway leading to this would have been painted white like the rest of the structure and frames along the passageway could be used for hanging insect netting and curtains to reduce any potential light leaks at the end of this passageway was a tiny concrete slit which would have provided a view over the bay and part of the harbour this view while potentially the most valuable would also be the most dangerous and liable to discovery and as such was well disguised on the outside looking merely like a small crack in the natural rock barely larger than a coin when not in use a stone slab could be pushed into the slit to block the view and stop any potential light leaks from emanating from the observation post ventilation for the structure would be drawn from a conduit that ran down the stairway from the eastern observation post and would be assisted by manually driving the air extraction system with the bicycle or hand cranked generators that would be normally used for charging the battery systems back at the entrance of the cave loose bricks cement and timbers were piled up for when the fateful day came for the team to entomb themselves into the chamber from the inside curiously the bricks were found near a section of tunnel that was blocked up this may have been an original entrance left over from the construction or served an unknown purpose in the post once sealed inside and walled off the corrugated arm would be put back in place on the outside to hide the entrance and the operation would begin the men involved were under no illusions as to what was in store for them once in there was to be no way back out it was for this reason that the loose bricks and mortar at the entrance had a grisly jewel function along with blocking off the entrance way they could also have been used in the event of the death of any members of the team the body would have to be involved then tuned into the walls of the post potentially only meters away from the still living members of operation tracer with the plans in place for the post building work in gibraltar began immediately under commander geoffrey burley and his chief engineer colonel fordham both had overseen vast amounts of tunneling on the rock so far and knew better than anyone where a site could be best established and excavated in secrecy curiously in the area under lord aries battery that was chosen for the tracer cave another structure called lord aries shelter was also built this was a large long white-washed room of a similar style and designed to the secret tracer cave while the specific functions of lord 80's shelter are unknown it contains many similar features to the tracer cave such as whitewashed walls a water tank and wash pit which were possibly built as a test bed and training facility for the tracer operation we will return to your regularly scheduled content in just a moment but this is just a short message to say that this video today is not sponsored there is no vpn or mobile game or subscription-based hair care product that i have to tell you about but this video is supported by you and everyone who likes my videos subscribes to my channel and generally supports the work that i do here i love nothing more than researching projects and making videos such as these but they take time to research write produce and edit and if you'd like to support more content like this and help me produce more videos documentaries and projects then please consider subscribing to my patreon or if you'd like chucking a buck via buy me a coffee or in my case buy me a whiskey of course you don't have to do any of these things but all of your support from your comments and emails to sharing my work online goes a long long way and makes my day every day so without any further ado let's get back to operation tracer perhaps the biggest burden placed on the men who had volunteered for this ultra-secret operation would be the rigors of captivity within the small confines of the dark windowless rooms and corridors of the tracer cave and the need for absolute silence and the stress of potential discovery weighing on them at all times it was for this reason that the organizers of operation tracer turned to a man who probably had the most experience than anyone on earth with such extremes of solitary confinement and conditions george murray levick born in 1876 george murray levick was a british naval surgeon and arctic explorer in 1910 levick was granted a leave of absence from the royal navy to take part in the terra nova expedition the ill-fated attempt by robert falcon scott to be the first person to reach the south pole which ultimately led to the death of scott and his four companions on the track at the same time however levick and five members of the party were sent to cape adair to make a number of scientific observations the team's final year almost ended in disaster when they ended up trapped in a hastily dug snow cave for an entire arctic winter the six men lived under horrendous conditions for almost half a year surviving off piecemeal supplies and seal blubber for both food and fuel all before having to make the punishing trek hundreds of miles back to the main terra nova base the following summer it was a harrowing and incredible story of survival and it made levick the perfect consultant for the planners of operation tracer on the 25th of january 1942 a secret meeting was held at kurzon street by lord horder with levick and the others involved in the planning including ian fleming based on his extensive antarctic experience levick made recommendations on the choice and physiology of the potential personnel they may recruit as well as the exercise then recreation clothing ventilation sanitation food alcohol tobacco and more grisly details such as the disposal by embalming and cementing up of anyone who died in the tracer cave it was also at this meeting that a team of six was decided upon the one officer as leader two doctors and three telegraphist ratings by august the tracer team had been chosen trained and were placed on gibraltar itself construction on the cave had almost concluded and the discussions were now being had on whether more tracer teams could be established in other important locations the recent fall of singapore had been viewed as a missed opportunity for such a team and the viability of establishing similar operations in malta and alexandria were being explored on gibraltar the volunteers were all given jobs to cover their presence there and a shadow team was also being established possibly as a backup or a second observation post should gibraltar fall one of these men working undercover in gibraltar was bruce cooper a royal navy physician who had been recruited by levick to become one of the two doctors on the top secret operation cooper had gone through the training and preparation for his task and along with his team worked dutifully in their cover roles around gibraltar until the time was right at one point he and the team visited the tracer cave finding it fully provisioned with food and supplies and with all the equipment such as radio sets batteries and the bicycle generator that would be used for charging the battery banks cooper wasn't worried about the prospect of being bricked up inside this small space where his handlers had warned him the operation or the war could stretch out for years if anything he was excited by the prospect however until the fateful day that the operation was activated all the team could do was sit tight faithfully stick to their cover stories and await word the time had come for them to be entombed it was a call that would never come however and with the passing of 1942 so passed the imminent fears of an invasion of gibralta while franco had indicated to hitler that spain was prepared to enter the war on their side and allow the germans to instigate operation felix talks between the two dictators had soon broken down hitler was now focused on his main aim the defeat of the soviet union and sought to return to the british problem once his campaign on the eastern front had come to an end while plans for a german invasion of spain and gibraltar were continuously developed and planned for such actions never materialized and by august 1943 with the increasing escalation of the war on the eastern front and the african campaign the threat to gibraltar had diminished an operation tracer officially came to an end the six volunteers were stood down the stores and equipment removed and the chamber was blocked up similar tracer operations were still rumored to be active in other strategic british locations and as such the secrecy of the operations and the plans were still absolute but for the men of the gibraltar unit including bruce cooper the operation was over dr cooper was soon shipped back to britain never to hear anything about tracer or the cave again it was a plan of such secrecy and meticulous planning that it would be over 50 years before the secrets of operation tracer would finally come to light despite its secrecy for the next half century stories would abound on gibraltar of the strange stay-behind cave rumored to be hidden somewhere in the vast labyrinth of tunnels that snaked under the rock however most of the extensive tunnel systems on gibraltar were still the property of the british military of defense and strictly off limits making investigations of certain areas all the more challenging nevertheless local historians and researchers had spent many years trying to narrow down where on the rock such a cave could be though the lofty heights of aries battery had often been ruled out owing to the levante cloud that often obscures views high up on the rock and would create difficulties for any potential observation post it wouldn't be until the late 1990s that the gibraltar caving group while exploring sections of the unusual lord aries shelter noticed the draft that was emanating from a particular section of rusted corrugated tunnel wall peeling it back and expecting to find natural stone they instead found the half bricked up wall and most amazingly of all the doorway that led down into the darkness of the tracer cave the first objects visible in the entrance passageway were the loose bricks and soil still sitting in place for the men to seal themselves inside or perhaps bury any members of the team should they have passed away moving further inside a derelict door now lay on the floor leading into the all but empty main room the cork tile still coated the floor now rotten and crumbled in the wash pit the team turned on the tap and found that amazingly the water still ran perfectly clear and the tank remained full and continued to receive water from the outside source in the two adjoining rooms the two chemical toilets and some of the equipment such as the radial room aerial had been left behind however both ceilings had long since collapsed in a notable exception to the various supplies that had been cleared out during its decommissioning the rusted remains of the bike generator still sat in place the bike would have originally been connected to a bank of batteries to provide power to the radios and a canvas or leather strap would have been used in place of a bike chain to help reduce any potential noise that still remained continuing deeper into the observation post the team found the two viewports still looking out overviews that probably changed little over the past decades frames for camouflage netting still sat in the eastern viewpost and from the western op the carved stone brick used to plug the viewport when not in use still sat ready to be used while the team was now sure they had found the cave and confirmed the long-standing story of operation tracer they decided to keep the existence and actual location a closely guarded secret for three months while they conducted further research the operation wasn't fully confirmed until more information on the clandestine plans actually came to light in december 1996 dennis woods who'd helped build the facility came forward confirming its authenticity and also its name braithwaite's cave it had been named in honor of major j.a braithwaite who had led the construction of the post and who had died when a tunneling charge went off accidentally the final piece of the puzzle came however in 2006 when researchers jim crone and sergeant major pete jackson mbe tracked down dr bruce cooper then 92 years old and having held on to his secret role in operation tracer for over 50 years cooper managed to provide and confirm information on many aspects of the operation that had been dug up over the years and in 2008 cooper revisited tracer cave returning to the site of a secret operation almost half a century later along with his incredible role in operation tracer cooper had extensive service at sea including action with the royal navy during the second world war aboard the destroyer hms versatile after the war bruce continued his work as a physician becoming a gp and later taking semi-retirement to serve as a physician on the cruise ship ss uganda during this time he even stopped in gibraltar once more but felt no inclination to try and rediscover the still blocked up tracer cave considering it his duty to maintain the secret incredibly cooper went on to serve in another war at age 67 as the ss uganda was repurposed as a hospital ship during the falklands war and was in a strange twist of fate refitted for falkland service in gibraltar over the years dr cooper kept in contact with some other members of operation tracer including his friend and fellow doctor arthur milner whom he had recommended to levick to join the operation on december 3rd 2010 surgeon lieutenant commander bruce cooper died peacefully just a few days after his 96th birthday he was the last surviving member of the tracer operation and without the incredible passion of the researchers historians and explorers dedicated to uncovering more about the operation his story may never have been told one of the most interesting aspects of cooper's testimony however may not have been in what he confirmed but his contradictions of what he recalled of the tracer cave compared to what was found and documented and leads many researchers to believe that there may be more hidden chambers yet to be discovered in the great rock of gibraltar shortly after arriving in gibralta cooper and the other two officers traveled up the rock to visit the observation post inside cooper described a relatively small room with a small slit in one wall from which he remembers looking down over the town and across towards the detached mall in gibraltar harbour on the opposite side of the room he recalled a reasonably sized opening looking over the mediterranean with a sheer drop beneath what's curious is that cooper was certain that there was no ledge he could have crawled out onto like that which was found in the tracer or braithwaite's cave dr cooper was quite certain the room had no other tunnels or passages attached to it and he also felt sure that the location of the observation post was not below or close to a gun battery dr cooper's description of the observation post he visited all those years ago differs from what was discovered in braithwaite's cave in december 1966 and while he did say his memory of the room had considerably faded the differences in his description are quite stark cooper also visited the cave more than once when the operation was eventually called off he returned to the post too as he put it snatched some goodies in the form of biscuits and rations that had been stockpiled there on may 15 1966 journalist and author ian colvin wrote a report in the daily telegraph that revealed some of the first information of a possible stay-behind mission in gibraltar his sources led him to believe that the mission was a two-man operation called operation monkey many of colvin's facts also differ in regard to tracer and what is known about braithwaite's cave references to operation monkey have subsequently appeared in unearthed reports which imply there may have been other concurrent stay behind operations on gibraltar at the same time possibly with little to no knowledge of the other to preserve secrecy it's also worth noting that cooper stated he had no knowledge of any other parallel operations occurring during his time there it's entirely possible that more hidden caves may appear in the future and not just on gibraltar records indicate that very similar tracer style operations were being planned for high value bases such as malta alexandria and aiden and tracer style operations may have been happening as late as the suez crisis in 1956. it has long been said that one of hitler's final regretful quotes was that we should have taken gibralta the importance and role that gibraltar played over the course of the war was crucial to many parts of the atlantic mediterranean and african campaigns but should it have fallen it would have taken on an even more extraordinary role as the allies secret observation post run by a brave group of volunteers entombed within the rock itself well thank you very much for watching this video on operation tracer sorry if i sound a little bit out of breath and frustrated it's because it's the weekend and i'm trying to finish this video get it uploaded i'm also my dad is very kindly trying to fit a diesel heater into my van and i'm trying to run outside and help him with that my hands are stinking this place stinks of diesel right now diesel and coffee you can tell i've clearly just finished this video right now in this edit as you can see currently sitting on my computer because there are coffee cups and books and everything else scatter around here anyway thank you very much for watching really fascinating subject um i found out about this through my love of antarctic history because i mentioned george murray obviously a kind of keystone to this whole thing um fantastic book here called uh the longest winter by meredith hooper and it's about well scott's other heroes the northern party that i mentioned and they're incredible um well scientific observations in cape dair um and then they're even more incredible trek and survival as they trekked back um over the course of a a year odd really incredible i don't know if it was this book specifically that i read it in but i read somewhere then about his involvement with this odd clandestine plan to lock people up uh in a in a cave uh to watch the germans in case you're brought to fell and you can see why and where you know clearly his expertise was going to be valued by the planners of this operation um but yeah really really interesting i i kind of had found out about it that way and this is going back a wee while now i started trying to find sources and good sources this is always the problem is you don't want to start you know repurposing and reusing and regurgitating information that has you know is not true or has just been kind of added by someone mistakenly and then gets you know reused and reused which is something i find happens quite a lot with you know these kinds of videos and i found reference to a magazine so i think the story of researching this is even more unusual sometimes but i found a magazine that had written an article about it called i spy so i knew the magazine existed i need to try and find this magazine and find a copy of this magazine and i contacted so many people i was reaching out to all these people who um had written it and had was involved with it and i posted it on forums and everything like has anyone got this thing obviously no one did but then bizarrely um i searched on ebay one day i had a search alert for it but then i searched it and up popped the issue that i was looking for and not only did the issue that i was looking for pop up um i i think i saw two of them so like some hero had like just gone you know what i can tell the internet's asking for this i'm gonna release my my saved copies of i spy issue 47 2007 edition or whatever and here it is the article um talks all about this stuff at this point quite new a lot of the research and the discoveries the cave had only been found 10 years prior and they had discovered bruce cooper who was still alive and who had talked all about his experiences there and i saw jim crone ruth cooper and pete jackson jim crone his name had popped up a couple of times and also so did discover gibraltar which i shared the screenshot for in the video there basically after finding this on i think it was like new year's day it was it was like it was very very start of 2020 i messaged someone that i thought looked a bit like jim crone and i said listen weird question uh you know operation tracer i spy magazine blah blah blah are you involved and he got back to me and said yeah that's me same guy not only though did i was involved in this i'm the guy who built discover gibraltar.com and so this was great because i had been using that as a source for for uh research but i only had access to it through you know like uh archives and the wayback machine because the website had been taken off years ago and had now been taken over by like you know the tourist board for gibraltar so he said okay what i'll do is i'll re-host the website i've got all the old files i'll just re-host it on my website obviously it takes up no space nowadays because it's like an early 2000s website and i suddenly had access to all of this information and it was just fantastic so that was the main kind of that was the turning point where i was like great this is a subject um to really start talking about and that's where it started to grow arms and legs and turn into this slightly longer video than i planned um amazing though the you know big thanks obviously to to jim for his help and everyone there are a number of people credited in this um who whose photos they kindly let me use and also the person who built that amazing 3d model in sketchup of the cave i don't know who did it i tried to find out who it was i'll list obviously their profile for sketchup in the description but um it's amazing great way of visualizing it i don't know how i don't know if it's 100 the most accurate um representation of it but it's a great way of showing the kind of layout it's quite an unusual layout you know under the ground and you've got the second layer level and stuff like that to it but yeah really really amazing since writing it and then recording it and now editing it there's been a few other things that i found there's um a really fun walk around of the cave by the museum of gibraltar and they go into a bit of detail about dennis dennis woods who came forward to basically say hey i i built this place or i helped build this place of course what's amazing his signature was there in the plaster which i found absolutely fascinating and um he uh apparently had been shipped home the moment he finished building he didn't know what he was building he didn't know where in the rocky was building it but the moment he was finished he was shipped straight back to the uk and he wasn't allowed to leave the uk until after the war had finished in case he had been captured and then revealed information about it i imagine everyone who built it was involved or had similar kind of restrictions placed on them um there was also a documentary called operation felix now i think jim crone was involved in that he appears in that documentary uh there is also interviews with bruce cooper it goes into a lot more detail i think there's a 3d model a better 3d model that shows the completed interior of the inside of the cave as well too i when i was making this i didn't have access to it i could see on imdb but i couldn't find any copies of it or anything online i have since found and watched some of the clips from it as well and that that is really interesting if you search on youtube it probably will appear um and there are yeah let's see a few other um documents and stuff out there there's no book about it there there's not a definitive history of it anywhere really uh apart from what i found on on the old discover gibraltar that was the best resource i could have had for making this so yeah absolutely fantastic and how amazing you know i mean obviously it was discovered in 1997 through all their hard work but what luck that one dennis woods was still around to confirm it and confirm that amazing signature that you'd left in there and also that bruce cooper still alive could still recall those aspects of it um had kind of kept this secret his entire life and obviously had this amazing life as well too as a doctor and then the ss uganda and stuff like that really amazing uh really really good fun i just absolutely loved uh researching this and it it really you know i'm obsessed with all the band and stuff anyways you guys probably know from previous videos that i've made so this is just like ticks all the boxes for me the other thing of course that i did you might have seen in the video drew a picture of it this was more to help me visualize the interior i actually used the google sketchup model as a reference uh i was quite pleased with this i think if i i tried to make it complete with all the stuff that would be in there potentially it probably absolutely crammed with a lot more stuff than what i have depicted in here it would be like a submarine when it leaves port it would have just been stocked up the to the hill with food i imagine but um i'll put this online if you guys are interested i'll i know you could put on a mug and you could drink from it or something i've done that with other stuff in the past and you know generally speaking i mentioned it in the video this video obviously isn't sponsored um i'm sure i could have found a sponsor but it takes time i don't i like to get sponsors from things i actually use that's my big thing really but i would like to make more videos this year and you know this is something which is uh you know there is a viable career in making content like this um but i want to do it right and i want to stick to things i've always wanted to do which is trying to make consistent content and stuff i'm interested in and i would say if you liked what you saw here and you want to see more stuff and please visit my patreon and on there you can donate chucking a buck currently i have it set up that every time i release a video um i get paid i'm probably going to change that now to monthly because i'm hoping to try and upload around every month and uh if you also are interested you can you know give me a tip at buy me a coffee.com so so yeah i mean um i'm hoping to get more videos out this year if you like this kind of stuff i did a video on fort drum uh which which did very well and and people liked and that's a really fascinating subject i found and the other one that i did this summer in person and it's something i'd like to a lot more of was i visited some of the old ruins that are submerged under the water around scotland because of hydro schemes and dams um similar sort of vein in some ways to me i find that really really fascinating so yeah if you're interested in that those are two videos of mine to check out but anyway i think that was everything i wanted to cover i think i gave all the credits and shout outs that uh i wanted to obviously jim crone big thanks for all of your help um all of the people who uh in fact there was a guy who built an entire 3d model of this place i didn't even use i paid him for it obviously but uh he uh i made this up and then i ended up not using it i ended up using the sketchup model because it was a little bit more accurate in certain ways and also i hate 3d models especially blender so i just gave up on it essentially but yeah a lot of stuff that i was really pleased with and um looking forward to making more videos but like i think that was everything that i wanted to discuss now i need to go back outside and try and get this diesel heater working so expect a video on a tour of that van at some point in the future see you later

Channel: Calum

Views: 724,722

Keywords: gibraltar, Operation TRACER, Gibraltar WW2, Gibraltar World War 2, Gibraltar World War 2 Tunnels, Abandoned, abandoned places, WW2 Bunker, Secret Bunker, Secret WW2

Id: 2n97nh9PKH4

Length: 39min 35sec (2375 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 31 2022